Docudramatizing the real: Developments in British TV docudrama since 1990

ABSTRACT

The article discusses the reasons for the growth in television docudrama in Britain since 1990. These stimulating factors include regulatory frameworks, especially the Broadcasting Act of 1990 that affected existing television institutions by introducing increased competition and budgetary pressures. Challenges to television documentary from falling audiences, and to drama from rising costs, also led to a reconfiguration of British television schedules and the emergence of new hybrid programme genres. The pressures of this changed environment led the hybrid form of docudrama to take on some of the functions of history programmes, social affairs, political investigation and responses to key events such as the September 11, 2001attacks. Docudrama makers were increasingly required to seek co-production finance and distribution deals with overseas television channels. Docudrama was already controversial because of its relationship with antecedent documentary and dramatic traditions, but the post-1990 British contexts presented both new problems and new opportunities. The relative immediacy of docudrama and its engagement with public affairs, married with its performativity and personalized mode of address, equipped docudrama to respond to challenging circumstances. It could fulfil the capacities of the television medium for both social extension and intimate involvement in a period when its component genres faced significant obstacles in doing so.

KEYWORDS:

• docudrama
• regulation
• hybridity
• drama
• documentary
• genre
• television